


Nothing Gold Can Stay

by IoanNemos



Category: Andrew Hozier-Byrne (Musician), From Eden - Hozier (Music Video)
Genre: Crime, F/M, Found Family, Gen, Guns, i wrote this inside of 24 hours and it ended up being very dreamlike, past and present child endangerment, references to drunkenness, sad ending? happy ending? you decide, vaguely religious... stuff..., warnings for:
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-10
Updated: 2019-09-10
Packaged: 2020-10-13 22:29:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20590154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IoanNemos/pseuds/IoanNemos
Summary: We all long for Eden & we are constantly glimpsing it: our whole nature is still soaked with the sense of exile.- J. R. R. TolkienThey look at him sometimes, like they can't believe he's there, he's theirs.





	Nothing Gold Can Stay

**Author's Note:**

> Everything is more beautiful because we're doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again.  
\- David Benioff
> 
> It can't last.

i. the Man

The Man has long, dark hair and long, quick fingers. He is the most handsome man in the world. He never sings along to the radio, but he loves to watch the Woman sing. He doesn’t wear a seatbelt and he sticks his arm out of the window. He is slow, lazy, careful, until suddenly he is running, impatient, careless, until suddenly he lets out his breath in one big rush of air and the grin spreads across his face, slow and lazy.

Sometimes there’s a gun in the Man’s belt. It is not a toy and should not be touched.

ii. the Woman

The Woman has long, dark hair and long, quick fingers. She is the most beautiful woman in the world. She has sunglasses that never stay where she puts them for very long: they go from her face, to holding her hair, to folded and hanging from her shirt, to half-folded as she takes the end of one side and places it very deliberately between her teeth. She has straight, white teeth that show when she laughs and sings.

The Woman always has what the Man needs just before he needs it: the keys in the ignition, the last few dollars wrapped up neatly, a screwdriver, her hand guiding his hand to her waist, her shoulder, her neck.

iii. the Child

The Man calls him ‘kid’ and ‘babe.’ The Woman calls him ‘honey’ and ‘sweetheart.’ The names other people have given him seem to vanish a little every day, like the water in the road that disappears when they get close to it. The warmth of other voices softens and frays, still precious but less needed when the Man tosses him into the air and then catches him, when the Woman combs his hair with her fingers every morning and brushes her clean, white teeth with him every night.

They look at him sometimes, like they can’t believe he’s there, he’s theirs. The Man isn’t Dad; Dad is somewhere else in the vast expanse of world rolling away under the car tires, staggering and foul-breathed, saying ‘stupid’ and ‘useless’ and ‘Godforsaken’ or else nothing at all, like a statue, never looking. The Woman isn’t Mom; Mom is dead, somehow both dead and in the ground and alive and with the angels in heaven. Dad never said that that’s where Mom went, but the Woman explains patiently that good people go to heaven. “Did she say ‘I love you’?” the Woman asks. Her voice is slightly muffled by the Child’s hair as he presses against her in the back seat of the car.

“Yes.”

“Did she feed you?”

“Yes.”

“Did she tell you to brush your teeth and help you lay out clothes?”

He doesn’t have many clothes to lay out now, but he didn’t with Dad and Mom either. “Yes.”

The Woman shifts so he is more secure in her arms, rubbing a hand soothingly across his back. “Then she’s probably in heaven.”

“Can I go there?”

The Woman presses a kiss into his hair. “Yes.”

“Will you?”

She kisses him again. Her kisses are always soft and calm and deliberate. “Go to sleep, honey.”

iv. the Car

The life with the Man and the Woman centers around the Car. Whenever they stop at a gas station and the Man doesn’t get out and tell them to wait (and the Woman sings to the Child or plays a game but always has her hand on the keys, ready to turn them, before the Man’s door has opened again), he helps the Woman pick up and throw away food wrappers and tissues and used wipes from the Woman’s plastic box, cups and bottle caps and gum papers. Not plastic bottles, though, or empty cans- they go in green recycling bins. “They melt them down so they can use them again,” the Woman explains. “And again and again and again.”

“Why?”

“It’s better for the planet, sweetheart.”

He says, “Oh,” like he understands. She turns it into a game: whoever throws away the most trash wins.

He wins every time.

v. the Before This

It seems normal to explain that he was hiding in the house because he didn’t like Mr. and Mrs. Clark’s house, which was dark and dirty and noisy except when Mr. Clark was home. Mrs. Clark didn’t like him and Mr. Clark made him feel cold and funny. The Man and the Woman look at each other when he says this and they have a whole conversation without saying anything at all.

He wakes up that night because the Man and the Woman are outside of the car, talking. The Man is pacing, fingers combing through his hair, angry and words coming out like the neighbor’s dog barked: short, sharp, warning. The Woman stands nearby, voice too low for him to hear her words, but she’s calm. The Child’s growing nervousness at the Man’s anger shrinks again when the Man stops pacing and folds himself into the Woman’s arms, which opened right as he needed them. The Man shakes in the Woman’s arms. She rubs a hand soothingly across his back and kisses his cheek, soft and deliberate.

vi. the Cities

Sometimes, the Car isn’t enough. The Woman will click the lever and announce “Time to cruise,” as the Car leaves the highway. This means it’s time to look for gas stations or libraries. The Woman goes into the gas stations alone to ask for directions and it’s the Man’s turn to play games with him. Sometimes the game is the Man will make up a name and then the Child does; no repeats, and whoever can’t think of a name in five seconds loses. The Man usually wins, and explains it’s because he’s older: he’s met more people, so he knows more names. The Child never says the name he used to have: it’s like a secret, except it also scares him a little. He wonders what would happen if he asked the Man to call him that name. He wonders if the Man has one. He wonders if the Man would make up a different name to give him instead of ‘kid.’

If they find a library, they go in and the Man goes to the computers to do ‘boring stuff.’ The Woman always finds the kids’ section and helps him find a book to read or plays a game with him. She lets him decide and sometimes if he’s feeling angry she gives him space, but whenever he turns around there she is again, sometimes reading a magazine or chatting with someone. He can’t lose her in the shelves. It makes him feel like when they sleep in the backseat: hot and tight but held like she never ever wants to let him go.

After the Man is done with his boring stuff they get back in the Car and drive some more. Sometimes they go to a park and the Man pushes him on the swings or chases him over the playground. Sometimes they go to get lunch, or shopping, and the Man shows him how he slips little cans of fruit or chicken into his pockets, finger against his lips as he winks. Sometimes the Woman will ask him what shirt he likes more, this one or that one, and in the Car later she pulls the one he liked more out of her sleeve with a flourish, like a magician. Their eyes sparkle when they do this, smiling at him until he has to smile back.

Sometimes once it’s dark, sometimes not, they get back in the Car and drive, sometimes for a long time, sometimes not for very long, until they get to a house. It’s always a different house. They go to a back door or a side door and the Man takes the screwdriver the Woman hands him and breaks open the door and the house is theirs for One Night Only. This means they eat or drink anything in the fridge that smells okay, jump on all the beds to decide which is the comfiest, and sometimes the Man or the Woman will try on different clothes left in the closets. The Man and the Woman take a long, hot shower and give the Child a long, hot bath before snuggling together into the biggest, comfiest bed.

They always wake up before sunrise, eat breakfast, load up cans of food and boxes of crackers and bags of chips into boxes or bags or whatever they can find that then goes into the trunk. Sometimes the Man breaks furniture or leaves the doors open when he’s been angry about something. Sometimes if the Woman’s been angry (which is very quiet, her sunglasses on all day, her mouth twisting) she finds a pen or a marker and writes on the walls words he can’t read, or symbols he doesn’t recognize. But after, when the Man is done breaking picture frames or the Woman is done with her loopy letters and sharp symbols, they smile, they reach for each other, the Woman kisses the Man hard and sloppy instead of soft and careful, and sometimes the Woman tells him to read a book before closing the door.

They don’t talk very much, any of them. The Woman sings along with the radio. The Man plays the name game. But they don’t talk about school. They don’t talk about the Clarks or the policemen or the dark, broken house where they found him. The Man and the Woman talk with their eyes and their smiles, to each other and to the Child.

vii. the First Night

He’s tired when they find him, tired and hungry and sad, so when the Woman offers him something to eat he’s still kind of scared but too tired to wonder where the food came from or why she offers. It’s some crackers, salty and broken into little pieces, and as he eats them out of the package he can almost hear the conversation that the Man and the Woman are having with their eyes.

Then the Man nods, and the Woman nods back, and a slow smile spreads over her beautiful face. “Hey, honey, do you like McDonald’s?”

They buy him a hamburger  _ and _ nuggets  _ and _ fries  _ and _ an ice cream cone. The tiredness goes away while he eats it all, finally full, and then the tiredness comes back suddenly, making his head heavy. The Man carries him to the car. “Are you taking me back?” he asks, so scared he squirms in the Man’s arms.

“No, babe,” says the Man, and all the scared drops out of him at how warm and safe being called ‘babe’ makes him feel. Like his Mom used to make him feel. “No, we’d like to take care of you for a while. How’s that sound?”

The Man places him in the back seat and the Woman gets in next to him, pulling him close. “Sounds good.”

The Man ruffles his hair, gentle and lazy. The Woman rubs his arm, gentle and slow. “Sounds good to us too,” she says.

He falls asleep leaning against her, feeling her heartbeat against his head, feeling her hand rub his arm, brush his hair along his forehead. He is so full and so warm and so very unscared, for the first time in a really long time. The last thing he hears is a voice, not sure from which of them, whisper, “Could be ours.”

viii. the First Day

Breakfast is a can of pears, washed down with the syrup. The Woman laughs a little when it runs down his chin, but it isn’t a mean laugh, and she helps wipe it away. The Man drives for a long time, arm out the window, long brown hair rippling in the wind. The Woman plays games with him, ones with no rules, nipping his fingers with hers, her laugh making him laugh even though he doesn’t know why they’re laughing.

They go to a different McDonald’s for lunch and let him play on the playground. The Man and the Woman talk for a while, heads together, hair tangling, and when the Man comes over he thinks it’s because it’s time to go. Instead, the Man leans down, hands on his knees, and asks, “Do you wanna keep playing, or are you ready to go?”

He wants to play more, and the Man joins him, teaching him how to play tic-tac-toe. He is o’s, the Man is x’s, and he wins three times in a row. He’s so excited he runs back to the Woman and hugs her. “I won,” he says, and looks up to see her shining eyes, her beautiful smile.

“Of course you did, honey. I’m so proud of you.”

He’s so full of love and joy and excitement he feels like he can fly.

They visit the library, where the Woman reads a book to him while the Man does boring stuff, and then they drive to a park. It’s so hot in the sun but the Man pushes him on the swings, pushes him so high he screams in delighted terror. The Woman chases him over the playground, then lifts him up so he can drink out of the water fountain. They all drink, and then they just sit under a tree for a while. He almost falls asleep on the ground between them, head pillowed on the Woman’s lap, the Man’s hand resting hot and heavy on his shoulder.

They go to the first house for One Night Only, teach him how to play The Floor is Lava, make sandwiches for dinner and then a cake which they eat with their fingers. The Woman takes a shower, and then the Man, and then they give him a bath with so much bubble bath it splashes onto the floor. They laugh instead of getting mad and they teach him to jump on the beds and catch him when he nearly falls.

They chase and tickle until he’s exhausted, and then they cuddle, stroking his hair, cupping his cheeks, so much love pouring out of their eyes that even though they don’t say a word, he can hear it. He falls asleep between them then, and doesn’t dream.

ix. the Now

It’s sunset, the sky is so many colors, and they’ve pulled over onto the side of the road in the middle of the desert to watch it. The Man has hoisted the Child onto his shoulders, where he gently untangles the Man’s hair. The Woman leans against the Man, one of his arms twined in one of hers. She’s humming slowly, something sad and lilting, but when she looks up at the Child she’s smiling again. She threads her fingers through his hair. It’s longer than it’s ever been, brushing his eyebrows, just barely catching on his eyelashes. It’s dark, like theirs. “Do you want a haircut, honey?” she asks. Her voice is quiet in the stillness. A little breath of hot wind stirs her hair, then dies again.

“No.” He reaches down to grab a strand of her hair, nearly falling, caught by both of them. “Want it long. Like yours.”

Her breath catches. The Man’s shoulders give a little twitch. “Like mine, honey?”

“And his.” He leans forward and presses a kiss into the Man’s hair, like she kisses his. There’s another little twitch, a soft gasp from the Woman.

“Like ours,” the Man says. He looks at the Woman, though from the Man’s shoulders he can’t see his face. “Ours.” There’s a fierceness in the way he says it, a heat that makes the Child shiver.

The colors fade. They don’t go to a house that night. He curls up in the Woman’s clinging arms, feels the Man’s hand in his hair until he falls asleep.

x. the End

Somewhere, this is how it ends.

Police officers surround an abandoned house, shouting. A Man leaves it with his hands raised above his tangle of long, dark hair. A Woman leaves it the same way. A Child is comforted by strangers, wrapped in a blanket, assured to his growing confusion that everything (which was wonderful) will be okay now. The Woman is permitted one last kiss, pressed calm and deliberate to his cheek. She says nothing, smiles through her sorrow, through a heartbreaking assurance that this couldn’t end any other way.

Somewhere else, perhaps, this is how it is beginning.

A Man, inspired by Ours, is looking down at the Child instead of up at the wrong moment. A Woman, inspired by Us, stays on the highway instead of taking the exit. The Man goes alone into no more gas stations, perhaps. Perhaps the Woman no longer has a screwdriver in hand before he needs it. Perhaps the wanted signs disappear into the rearview mirror, which now reflects a sleeping Child. The money is counted more carefully. Deserts become plains become mountains become forests.

A child goes missing. Two criminals drop off the radar. These things have nothing to do with each other and are never connected.

Slowly the Child’s memories of living in a Car interspersed with One Night Only blur and fade, along with a different woman’s face, a different man’s voice. Perhaps instead there is a small house with a small backyard and a tree for climbing. Perhaps there is a boss who doesn’t ask too many questions, who sees something desperately crawling towards something better in the face of a haunted man, who sees something innocent strangled in its crib beginning to breathe again, who shelters, who guides. Perhaps there is a neighbor who wonders but instead of getting a shovel to unbury the past offers something fresh, something new, a cup of coffee and free babysitting.

Perhaps the Man is christened Dad. Perhaps the Woman is christened Mom. Perhaps the Child is christened again, baptized into a new life that glows from within.

Probably not. But perhaps.

**Author's Note:**

> Nature's first green is gold,  
Her hardest hue to hold.  
Her early leaf's a flower;  
But only so an hour.  
Then leaf subsides to leaf.  
So Eden sank to grief,  
So dawn goes down to day.  
Nothing gold can stay.  
\- Robert Frost

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [it’s bloody and raw but i swear it is sweet](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24377947) by [sapphfics](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphfics/pseuds/sapphfics)


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